Into Madness

Into Madness
CreatorRexacuse
EngineFE8
DownloadHere
Score60/80
Rank2nd

Reviews

Judge 1: Darrman

Gameplay: 8/10

This chapter takes strong inspiration from Fire Emblem Heroes. The weapon triangle is very powerful, and all units are colour-coded. Helpfully, every unit has an icon blinking on them at all times to indicate their colour. The other main gimmick is the large quantity of recruitable enemies: beat up an enemy with a face and they’ll join your fight against the Demon King. In true Heroes fashion, skills are everywhere. Pay attention to them: failure to factor unit and weapon skills in will result in failure. I did fail in full recruitment/no deaths – I lost four in the winning run. The only real complaint I have here is a strange bug involving Pret: when killing him, sometimes he spawned near the final boss. I eventually figured that he spawned by the boss if underneath him: that should have been pointed out at some point.

Presentation: 5/5

All the mugs were of excellent quality, and the animation work was also very well done. However, I did notice the occasional graphical bug when a battle quote occurred.
One thing I dislike is the choice to scrap unique item icons in favour of all swords using a generic red sword icon. I see why this was done – to make telling colours easier and to match Heroes – however, I don’t agree with it. However, it is thematically appropriate, so this still gets a 5/5. Obs’s palette had enough red on it that I thought he was an enemy occasionally, too.

Story: 3/5

The story is fairly generic: the bad guy has controlled the lord’s friends, and she must stop him. Along the way, she fights her friends and gets them back. What bumps this up to a 3 is the presence of character endings – a nice detail to end the chapter with.

Total Score: 16/20

Judge 2: MCProductions

Gameplay: 9/10

This is essentially Tactics of Taming but better. You are trying to kill enemies en masse to recruit them asap, and use your recruits to clear the area of further enemies. It’s very fun and the map is much better designed.

Presentation: 4/5

Good music, great sprites, Only issue is the lack of weapon icons, but this was done for gameplay reasons.

Story: 2/5

It’s an excuse plot, it does the job.

Total Score: 15/20

Judge 3: 2WB

Gameplay: 8/10

Despite my initial fear – being told `heroes` just fills me with dread – the units don’t have *so* many skills that it’s impossible to play, but it’s not my idea of a great time to keep having to check back and reread the items.
It’s made slightly worse because they have the same icon so one of my usual tells for differentiating items is gone; but the decision to do this is itself a thing I am thankful for because it makes it easier to work with the r-g-b weapons.

The enemy reinforcements are nicely spread both location and timing wise. The map layout lets you pull one group at a time, but doesn’t let you pull individual units so you have to have prepared an answer for them.

The gimmick is quite nice. “Beat them up and they become your friend” is so standard that I’ve missed it due to how often it’s dodged in what I play.

The infinite reinforcements every turn starting at turn 20 is slightly excessive? I appreciate why they’re there I just… watching them derp shuffle around is a bit distracting.

Presentation: 5/5

IN HACK CREDITS
except it’s inconsistently applied and some are wrong
BUT IT’S THERE
so that’s cool.

The hack has a lot of style and panache. Palettes for everyone and a bunch of new really personalized animations.
The music is very relaxing – Mt Thunder is a good track. There’s not a whole lot of music but what few there are are used well.

Every portrait is very clearly made with lots of love for the friend it depicts, and they don’t clash with each other horribly, showing actual thought and forwardness.

The credits theme is His World.
I don’t know who you are, but like.
Please don’t. I couldn’t contain myself.

Story: 3/5

It’s a mockery of FE8 with a new cast! I was amused, it’s very short and doesn’t linger at all. But it’s *really* barebones.

But look, all these random friends are here! It’s just gangbusters. Everyone has a recruitment event and it establishes some of who they are. I’m really wondering if some of the conversations are dynamic because there’s so much room for goodness there but at the same time it’s not a fast to play map so I really don’t want to spend the time to find out just how many are – I have to assume a fair number are, given some of the dialogues I did see being rather personalized.

The ending actually using the ending slides is really nice aesthetically.

Total Score: 16/20

Judge 4: theghostcreator

Gameplay: 6/10

I’m very torn on this aspect, the gameplay is solid conceptually, styling it after heroes is neat and I think has a lot of potential… However, the map is way too long to play without save state usage imo, since if the lord dies you have to reset and play it all over again… The reinforcements also came on a little too strongly early on and the enemy strength was a bit too high without ready access to healing items.

Presentation: 4/5

Looks nice visually, all the portraits are nice, map is well made, and the music is good, well done.

Story: 3/5

Very undercooked, nothing is explained and it expects me to know who these people are? I know some are community members but others… Eh?

Total Score: 13/20

Results

CategoryDarrMC2WBGhostTotal
Gameplay898631
Presentation545317
Story323412
Total1615161360

Grand Total: 60/80

2nd Position Overall